DAY ZERO FOR PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN CAPE TOWN: give Cape Town the trains.
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Statement by Brett Herron
27 February 2020
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Today, all Metrorail services have been suspended. Metrorail has failed to may its electricity to Eskom and has been cut off. The billions in unspent funds that PRASA has been sitting on were never transferred to pay its debts and now hundreds of thousands of commuters are stranded. That collapse, combined with the City’s useless leadership stopping MyCiTi buses to Mitchells Plain and Khayelitsha last year, have resulted in the arrival of Cape Town’s Public Transport Day Zero.
I have been campaigning for years for the City of Cape Town to take over the rail network so that the city could contract with rail operators able to meet the rail demand. In 2016 whilst I was responsible for Transport in Cape Town we appointed a team of experts to develop a plan for that takeover. That work was critically important as the collapse of Metrorail services has happened sooner than was anticipated.
Congestion costs the City of Cape Town economy billions each year and the suspension of public transport services will increase those costs. For the sake of stranded commuters who have no choice other than bus or rail, now both suspended, all spheres of government and the private sector must work together to accelerate the reallocation of funding and responsibility of metrorail trains from PRASA to the City of Cape Town.
It is the only moral thing to do.
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Media enquiries: Brett Herron bretth@forgood.org.za 082 518 3264